STOVE WAHALA! JONATHAN'S N9.2BILLION STOVE CONTRACT, CONTRACTOR SUES FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

The contractor handling the N9.2billion worth of clean cook stoves and wonder bags awarded by the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan has dragged the Federal Government to court.

The Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Environment, Fatima Mede, disclosed this to State House correspondents on Tuesday shortly after briefing President Muhammadu Buhari of the ministry’s activities inside the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

Mede said the contractor approached the court to order the government not to terminate the contract following the emergence of the present administration.

The Jonathan-led Federal Executive Council had on November 26, 2014 approved N9.2billion inclusive of Value Added Tax for the procurement of 750,000 units of clean cook stoves and 18,000 wonder bags.

The contract was awarded in favour of Messrs Integra Renewable Energy Services Limited.

There have been calls on the present administration to terminate the contract.

Confirming the legal action, Mede said the ministry had briefed the Office of the Attorney General of the Federation on the development.

She said the government would appear before the court to argue its case.

She however did not say if there were plans to terminate the contract.

She said, “The matter is in court right now, so there is a limit to how I can talk about the issue of cooking stoves.

“The contractor took government to court asking the court to grant an injunction for government not to terminate the contract.

“We will go there and argue our case, the government will go, we have briefed the Attorney General’s office.

“We will present our case on the issue that led to the contractor taking us to court, it will be explained and the court will decide.”

MAN(24) FORCES HIS MANHOOD INTO 4YEAR OLD GIRL'S MOUTH, REMANDED IN COURT

A 24-year-old man has been arrested and charged before Isolo Magistrates’ Court for defiling and engaging a 4-year-old girl in sexual activity in Lagos State, western Nigeria.

The suspect, Nwanagbaihu Chinonso, was allegedly caught by one of his neighbours after he had already forced his penis into the little girl’s mouth to suck.

The incident happened at Fakeye Street, off Isuti Road, Egan where the suspect resides with the victim’s parents.

What would have been the attraction for a 24-year-old man to engage a 4-year-old girl in sexual activities was the question on the lips of residents of Egan where the incident happened.

Chinonso was handed over to the police at Igando Division by the residents for prosecution. At the station, he allegedly confessed to committing the crime and blamed it on temptation.

He is now facing a two-count charge of defilement and engaging in sexual activity with a minor before the court.

When he was arraigned in court, the presiding Magistrate, Mrs A.O. Adedayo, ordered him to be remanded in prison custody pending when he will be granted bail.

P.M.NEWS gathered that Chinonso’s journey to prison started one afternoon when the victim strolled to his apartment and he closed his door without locking it from inside.

The police alleged that he carried the victim and inserted his finger into her private part and thereafter forced his penis into her mouth to suck.

While the act was going on, a neighbour who suspected a foul play suddenly opened the half locked door and saw what Chinonso was doing with the victim.

The woman raised the alarm which attracted other neighbours.

Having been caught in the act, Chinonso could not deny what he had done. Rather, he started pleading with the neighbours for forgiveness.

The neighbours rebuffed his pleas and handed him over to the police.

CAMEROON SENDS 12,000 NIGERIANS PACKING

About 12,000 Nigerians are being repatriated over the next three to four days after seeking refuge in Cameroon from attacks by Islamist militant group Boko Haram, Nigeria’s state emergency agency said on Wednesday.

A National Emergency Management Agency spokesman said the returnees would be accommodated mainly in the town of Mubi in Adamawa state, close to the border.

“We already cleared about 1,150 people but border officers projected that 12,000 people would be arriving,” spokesman Manzo Ezekiel said.

Cameroonian authorities expelled about 2,800 Nigerians over the weekend following a series of suicide bomb attacks in July.

The six-year-old insurgency waged by Boko Haram to establish an Islamist state in the northeast of Nigeria has displaced around 1.5 million people internally and forced thousands to flee into neighbouring Cameroon, Niger and Chad.

A multi-national joint taskforce combining 8,700 troops from Nigeria and its neighbours is being set up in Chad’s capital N’Djamena to combat the militants.

A similar-sized repatriation occurred in May from the Lake Chad islands in Niger when Nigerien authorities told residents, many of them Nigerians, to evacuate before military operations.

About 25,000 people were forced to leave, sometimes brutally. Some died en route due to inadequate evacuation assistance.

NYSC SCHEME PARTICIPATION WILL SOON BECOME OPTIONAL

The Director-General of NYSC, Brigadier-General Johnson Olawumi, told President Muhammadu Buhari on Wednesday that there were plans to make the scheme voluntary and reduce the corps population to make the programme more sustainable.

The NYSC Director General spoke during the briefing of the President by officials of the Federal Ministry of Youth Development led by the Permanent Secretary, Mrs. Rabi Jimeta to the President at Aso Rock presidential villa.

Jimeta had earlier told the President that the increasing number of NYSC participants posed a challenge to the scheme due to the dwindling revenue, from the national budget, to cater for their needs.

She told the President that the annual enrolment of corps participants had increased from 2,364 at inception in 1974 to 229,016 in 2014.

“Given the increasing number of tertiary institutions, our projection is that the number of corps participants may rise to 300,000 by year 2020,” she said.

However, Buhari who spoke after the briefing pledged that his administration will take all necessary actions to maintain and improve the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) programme as a functional vehicle for the promotion of national unity and integration.

The President affirmed his confidence and trust in the programme, saying that the objective for which the scheme was established in 1973 was still very relevant for national development now.

“I firmly believe in NYSC and I think it should remain a national programme to promote integration.

“Whenever I go home to Daura, I look out for Corps members from Lagos, Aba and other parts of the country.

“I am always thrilled to learn that except for the NYSC, some of them have never left their states of origin to visit other cities in the country,” President Buhari said.

PROSTITUTES STAGE PROCESSION IN OGUN STATE

There was mild drama in Abeokuta, Ogun State, Monday night, as scores of commercial sex workers staged a candlelight procession in honour of their colleagues, who were allegedly killed by suspected ritualists, weekend.

Dressed in black apparels, the sex workers, who stormed the state secretariat of Nigeria Union of Journalists, NUJ, Oke-Ilewo, Abeokuta, wailed as they mourned their colleagues.

One of the dead, who was simply identified as Sitira, was found dead at a refuse dump site at Olomoore junction in Abeokuta on Sunday morning.

Suspected ritualists were said to have abandoned the corpse of the 23-year-old prostitute after severing some flesh from her body.

The late Sitira was said to have been thrown off a moving Sport Utility Vehicle, SUV, along Abeokuta-Lagos Expressway.

Speaking with reporters, the protesters claimed that beside Sitira, another colleague was killed by suspected ritualists.

They said the mutilated remains of the second sex worker was discovered in a ditch at Olomoore, Abeokuta.

During the procession, about 50 commercial sex workers, plying their trade in Abeokuta, converged on the NUJ secretariat and also at the nearby residence of former Head of Interim National Government, Chief Ernest Shonekan.

They identified Sitira with different names: Titi and Folake.

Bearing candle sticks, they chanted solidarity slogans and rained curses on the killers of their colleagues.

The sex workers momentarily barricaded the NUJ secretariat and later departed for the MKO Abiola International Stadium, Kuto, Abeokuta, where they continued their mourning.

They chanted: Oro nla leda, oro nla leda, eyin tepa Titi, t’eje odagba, oro nla leda. Omo yin maku, eeeheee omo yin maku, eyin tepa Titi t’eje odagba, omo yin maku.

It means: You have done something grievous, you have done something grievous. The killers of Titi (Sitira) have done something grievous. Their children will die, their children will die, those that killed Titi will lose their children.